


come on home

by orphan_account



Category: Dong Bang Shin Ki
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-26
Updated: 2012-11-26
Packaged: 2017-11-19 14:42:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/574379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He calls himself Jake. Says it’s from Jacob when asked, and nods when asked if his parents were religious. Siblings? None.</p>
            </blockquote>





	come on home

**Author's Note:**

> I got into this fandom like two weeks ago, how the fuck did I get this obsessed.

He calls himself Jake. Says it’s from Jacob when asked, and nods when asked if his parents were religious. Siblings? None.

It’s better this way, he tells himself at night. They can go on without him, without the member whose embarrassing confession threatened to tear them apart. He keeps track of how they are, ignores the not-so-subtle messages Yunho sends him in song lyrics and in interviews.

Come home, most of them say. We love you is less frequent. I miss you, only once, at the very beginning.

“Good afternoon,” he says politely to the customer. He’s learned not to expect an answer anymore. Americans are staggeringly rude, and they don’t even realize it. She browses the shelves, and leaves again. She hasn’t said a word the whole time she was there.

His home is dark, but its familiarity is comforting. There is one bedroom – five beds, all of them slept in – and a music room. Today he sleeps in the bed that Changmin would have had, so many years ago.

He clings to these things, clings to them like a lifeline. He fears he’ll drown otherwise, in this land where he doesn’t know anyone, where no one knows him well enough to pull him to dry land.

But he won’t go back. It’s the only thing he’s sure of. He won’t be wanted there, and he’s had enough of that. He sings and he dances because he can’t stop, not because he’s hoping to go back one day.

The day comes when he’s recognized. He’s occupied with the jammed cash register – again, the damned thing – and they come to the counter before he’s noticed.

“Good afternoon,” he mumbles, flashing them a polite smile before looking back down. His hair is getting long again, bangs falling into his eyes-

“Oh my god,” one of them says. “It’s Hero Jaejoong.” (She pronounces his name wrong.)

“It’s not,” the other says, and the both of them dissolve into nervous giggles. He keeps his head down, but at that moment there is a beep and the cash register slides shut.

He looks up, smiles politely. “How can I help you?” He asks.

“It is!” The tallest girl says, and she blushes bright red. “Um,” she says. “Are you really Hero Jaejoong?”

“I’m sorry, you must have me confused with someone else-“ he tries, but his accent slips. He hates that his voice can betray him like that. “My name is Jake.”

“Oh.” The girl says. She doesn’t look convinced, and he notices her and her friend sneaking glances at him when he rings up their purchase. As they leave, he prays it won’t get onto the internet. It’s a futile hope, but he’s always been a sucker for those, hasn’t he?

The next day, there are twenty girls and they linger in the store for far longer than they rightly should. Most of them don’t even buy anything, they just stare at him from the back. He feels uncomfortable, ringing up Mrs Hunter’s purchase with hungry eyes drilling into him.

He’s forced to explain it to his boss - he lies, of course.

“I look like a member from a Korean boy band,” he says with an exaggerated groan. “DBZK or something. It’s weird.”

The boss takes a look at him, eyeing him up and down critically. “You don’t look like you’re in a boy band.”

“That’s why it’s so weird.” He says, emphasizing ‘weird’ as he’s learned to do here. English is ‘weird’ too.

His boss tries going over to the girls to get them out, but they only trickle back in, one by one, and this time they actually pretend to browse the shelves. She doesn’t have a good excuse to kick them out, not if they really want to be in here.

“Just go,” she says in the end. “Out the back, and I expect you to make up this shift.”

“I will,” he promises, and ducks into the back of the store. He pulls on a hat and a scarf – no sunglasses, it’s autumn – and sneaks out through the backdoor. He runs the whole way home, and is pleasantly surprised to find he’s barely out of breath. He knows he’s been keeping in shape, he knows he’s barely aware of how not to, but it’s nowhere near as rigorous as dance practice with Yunho used to be.

That night he dances until his head is pounding with the beat, and it’s almost like he can hear Yunho going “One more time, come on” every time he wants to stop. He doesn’t bother with a shower, just flops onto his bed and tries to let exhaustion take him.

As always when he most needs it to, sleep eludes him. He grabs his laptop – just to check his e-mail – and two hours later he’s hunched down in the darkness of his room, browsing through fansites with ever increasing panic. They’ve taken pictures, and he’s so clearly identifiable, even in a baseball cap and a grimy sweater that he doesn’t see how it happened sooner. They’re going to find him, and they’re going to drag him back home, and-

He’s relieved. He’s so fucking relieved. The breath leaves him in a whoosh, and he slumps over his laptop. He starts crying, really crying, until his eyes hurt and he can’t tell the snot from the tears anymore. His chest hurts with the gasping sobs that force their way up, but he can’t stop and he doesn’t want to. He didn’t want to go in the first place, just knew he had to, and now it’s over, and he’s willing to take anything they dish out if he can just see their faces again and know that they don’t hate him.

As long as they don’t hate him, he doesn’t even care if he’s kicked out of the band. As long as they don’t hate him, that’s all he asks.

There are only three times a man cries in his life. He’s been alive for years, this is almost like the reverse of a break-up, but his manager hasn’t given him food in months. It’s almost funny. He laughs through the tears, hiccups into his pillow until he feels like his sides are going to split, and falls asleep from one moment to the next.

The store is empty when he arrives. The silence is deafening, almost like the hush that sweeps through a crowd as they strain to listen.

It rather feels like he’s straining to listen to something else. There is a crowd gathering outside, but none of them come in. The feeling of suspense is almost tangible now, and he feels it gathering in his throat, wanting to burst out. It’s like the final seconds before a song starts.

He waits.

The screaming starts, but it’s a distant roar in his ears. His gaze is focused on the black car that pulls up, and the four men that come tumbling out of it.

The bell chimes as the door opens.

“Hello,” he says. His voice catches just a little.

“You fucker,” Changmin says, striding through the aisle to punch his shoulder. His smile is shaky as they slam into a hug that forces the breath out of them.

Junsu clings to him for a moment, and whispers into his ear: “I forgive you.”

Yoochun laughs at his baseball cap, before his smile crumbles and he bursts into tears. He waves away the offered hug. “Later,” he says as Junsu pulls him away.

Last is Yunho. The tears almost start to spill, but he forces them back. He’s trying to drink in Yunho’s face. He looks tired, and thinner than he rightly should.

Yunho swallows.

“Hey.” He says.

“Hey.”

Yunho’s arms encircle him with bruising strength, and he squeezes back just as hard. He’s shaking on his feet, and he’s hanging off of Yunho, and Yunho lets him. He doesn’t murmur soothing words, just holds him tight and lets him hang on. Yunho’s breath is shaky, and his fingers dig into his arms, and he’s crying too. It’s alright. The pain means it’s real.

Jaejoong can’t remember the last time he cried this much over something so filled with joy. It doesn’t matter, anyway.

Yunho says something indistinct, and suddenly Jaejoong’s being hugged from all sides. It hurts, and he can’t quite catch his breath, but it feels good.

It feels like home.


End file.
